Page images
PDF
EPUB
[blocks in formation]

Green,

pp. 616-619.

Bright, II, 722-726.

CHAPTER XI

THE RESTORATION AND THE REVOLUTION

Books for Consultation

SOURCES

Shaftesbury, Letters and Speeches.
Life of James II (by himself).
Clarendon, Life of Clarendon.
Burnet, History of my Own Times.
Pepys, Diary and Correspondence.

Taylor, W. F., England under Charles II.

Evelyn, Diary and Correspondence.

SPECIAL AUTHORITIES

Lingard, History of England.

Macaulay, History of England.

Hallam, Constitutional History of England.

Neal, History of the Puritans.

Seeley, Growth of British Policy.

Christie, Life of Shaftesbury.

Russell, Life of Lord Russell.

Traill, Shaftesbury, William III.

Macaulay, Essays on Sir William Temple, and on the Comic Dramatists of the Restoration.

IMAGINATIVE LITERATURE

Scott, Old Mortality, Peveril of the Peak.
Shorthouse, John Inglesant.

The Return of Charles II. The recall of the Stuarts did not mean that the work of the last twenty years was to be all undone. The overthrow of the Commonwealth had been brought about by a party which desired a settlement of the government in accordance with the constitutional relations that existed at the close of the first session of the Long Par

[blocks in formation]

liament. To the people generally the restoration of the monarchy meant a return to government by king and Parliament. Charles II was shrewd enough to realize this, and the men whom he called to his council were moderate in temper, Royalists or Presbyterians. Edward Hyde, later Earl of Clarendon, was appointed chancellor. A leader of the Long Parliament during its first session, then the faithful adviser of Charles I, Clarendon now became Charles II's chief minister.

[graphic][merged small][merged small]

ernment.

The Convention Parliament continued to sit during the Settlement year 1660. Its duty was to execute the articles of the of the govDeclaration of Breda, and to provide for the needs of the crown. An Act of Amnesty was passed, but most of the late king's judges were excepted, and in the end thirteen of the regicides, together with Vane and Lambert, were executed. The bodies of Cromwell and Ireton were dragged from their tombs in Westminster Abbey and hanged, and the bodies of Pym and Blake were dug up and thrown into a common pit. A great deal of property had changed hands during the revolution, through confiscation, or sales often more or less forced. The Church and the king

Bright, II, 726.

Green,

pp. 619-625. Bright, II, 726-728,732.

received back their lands, but private sales were declared valid. The horror of military rule was shown by the speed with which the army of the Commonwealth was disbanded, only two regiments being retained. Feudal dues and purveyance were abolished, and their place was supplied by an excise. Tonnage and poundage were granted the king for life, and the whole revenue of the crown was fixed at £1,200,000 a year. An attempt to settle the Church by a compromise establishing a form of government partly Episcopal and partly Presbyterian in character was wrecked by the fear that it might open the way to toleration of Roman Catholics. This question remained undecided when the Convention was dissolved.

The Cavalier Parliament. — The tide of loyalty was rising fast. The Parliament called in 1661 was fired with zeal for Church and king. It included not more than fifty Presbyterians, and its reactionary temper was at once apparent. Every member was ordered to receive the communion according to the rites of the Anglican Church, and the League and Covenant was solemnly burnt in Westminster Hall. Formal resolutions were passed declaring that there was no legislative power in Parliament without the royal sanction, that the king was the rightful commander of all forces, and that it was unlawful for either House to make war against the crown.

Settlement of the Church. The most important task of the new Parliament was the settlement of the religious question. A conference called in April at the Savoy Palace between Presbyterian and Episcopalian divines showed great bitterness of feeling and failed to devise a basis of compromise. The whole question was left to Parliament. The chief characteristics of the predominant element in the nation were devotion to the English Church and detestation of Roman Catholics and Nonconformists, and legislation reflected this temper. In 1662 an Act of Uniformity was Uniformity, passed requiring all clergymen and schoolmasters and fellows of colleges to accept unfeignedly everything contained

Act of

1662.

[blocks in formation]

in the Prayer Book. As a result, nearly two thousand clergymen, about one-fifth of the whole number, including the most learned and active men in the Church, were deprived of their charges. They were the leaders of the party which had continued to hold to the early Puritan idea of remaining within the national Church in the hope of moulding it. They were now forced to establish communions outside of the Church. Together with the Independents, Baptists, Quakers, and other sects, they formed a large Nonconformist body.

[graphic][merged small][ocr errors][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed]

The apprehension with which Dissenters' were regarded Penal statutes was shown in a series of penal statutes. The towns were against the stronghold of Presbyterianism, and in 1661 the Corpora- Dissenters. tion Act was passed, requiring all holders of municipal office to take the Sacrament in accordance with the rites of the Anglican Church, to renounce the Covenant, and to take the oath of non-resistance. By the Conventicle Act of 1664, religious meetings where more than four persons in addition to the household came together were prohibited unless in accordance with the forms of the Established Church. A third violation of this law was punished by

1 So the Nonconformists were now commonly called.

2 Doctrine of non-resistance as embodied in the oath of allegiance: "I, A B, do declare and believe that it is not lawful upon any pretence whatever to take up arms against the king."

« PreviousContinue »